Sincerity in Muteness
by BlueStarlightWriter
Summary: It's a warped sense of salvation he finds in the sway of her hips and the flutter of her flute. Curious little creatures mortals were, tiresome at their best. Yet with her Fane cannot help but confess, there may be more to his elf than meets the eye, even to that of the Godwoken. Slightly different from the main story, Fane x OC
1. Masquerade

.

 **Sincerity in Muteness**

~~o~~

Description

It's a warped sense of salvation he finds in the sway of her hips and the flutter of her flute. Curious little creatures mortals were, tiresome at their best. Yet with her Fane cannot help but confess, there may be more to his elf than meets the eye, even to that of the Godwoken. Mute in voice, spritely in dance, it is surprising to find such a spirit alive in such a terrible world. Only the tragedy is she is not alive, not truly, and is something altogether wicked that may keep Fane from the brink of insanity. Or cause it.

~~o~~

Chapter One: Masquerade

 _It would soon be the hour to dance,_ the elf mused by candlelight, _all will see me sway._

The Lady of the evening had become very much accustomed to her late hour routine. Such was necessary for one who showcased traditional elven burlesque, or so her landlord had often claimed. As her landlord had once been a showgirl for the stage many years ago. One painted in soft pastel pinks, luxorious swirls and fabulously drawn watercolours on a theatre's inner walls. For in the height of a city wintered, where carriages swept through icy fog and streetlamps glimpsed shaded nobility cortèges, what to many other cities would have been a coldly bare night was the soul flurry of little Maigneux's eastward boulevard by the prairie.

Full in acts of flowing regalia; china masks strewn with frayed lanceolate leaves, river tulips; flaxen complexions and strawberry rouge lips, the Proud Spire was an emporium-designed theatre enthralled in flute, piano and clarinet crescendos. Music gleaned off three-story windows, bounced from tile roves slick with rain, while hecklers coaxed peasants in through back doorways.

In Maigneux the Proud Spire was truly the pinnacle of the previous hundred years, or so the Lady herself believed. She begun her routine as any other night, kneading a ringed bauble into her pointed left ear. In the flick of the neck it jingled against her neck, glinting in silvery ivory.

From there her fingers drifted into her hair, to weave small strands of silver-grey into braids forming a circlet along the height of her crown; soft, featherlight. A bridal wreath. That was the inspiration of the night.

Her fingers curled split ends, brushed the remainder of her locks from her long neck, which allowed the stray threads to flow from her shoulders like a flurry of winter snow, smooth and silken.

Her smile was equally soft as rosy lips parted to a flutter of cream. The Lady lastly plucked a flower from her dressing table and smoothed it so it was primply ready for its pluck, as local tradition dictated in the peeling of jasmine bulbs before a performance.

However, as the final petal came undone into an opened display, a thorn instantly nipped her finger.

The Lady did not flinch. The Lady did not cry as others would have done. Instead, she watched the wound pool with no fear, for it was only one hole of many against the freckles along her skin. Or so people believed were freckles, instead of lasting scars. In the following moment the jasmine drooped from her ringed ear prettily, while also glinting in dewy red beads.

Beyond her loft of silken curtains and tinted rosewood, the housing of her stage, the Proud Spire, lay quilted in a serene hush, with the gentle strums of a well tuned harp purring through the heated gaze of a mesmerised audience.

The Lady imagined the pastel sea before her; felt the tantalising warmth of enraptured breaths flurrying to her from the finest of suitors. From pristine doublets to ragged tunics, from tainted crowns to hacked sickles. From far and wide they sought her performance. It was not only adoration, but also love.

She would curtsy to her men, press a hand to her heaving bosom and blow kisses to those who cheered the merriest. And in the late turn of the eve she would find a suitor parading across her hall who demanded her bed, but whom she would whisk away in a hearty farewell, for no man could solly the fire of her passion for the dance.

Neither landlord, fate, nor even the Gods themselves could deny such a spirit. And so she danced the night away, for coin and joy.

"Masella," she heard the outside chant when a hand braced along her door. "Isabelle's performance is nearly done. You're on next, dear."

Her hand stilled on an uncorked decanter, as the scent of lavender oil seeping into the air. She swept her hand into a pallet of pale powder and padded the sponge across her cheeks, her neck and collarbones. She then raised a single candlestick to her walled mirror, where lilac flames licked at shadows from a jaded, cracked glass.

The Lady leaned in. The radiance blushed subtle blues into her soft reflection.

To mortals her facade was near perfection: supple flesh, red-blossomed lips, an opal-shaded gaze that inspired an innocent observance to the world.

Though like many tomes, stories and tales she had read since she was a young child, there were times when natural beauty hid a deeper horror. In her tale it was simple. Her reflection was a lie.

Beauty was only skin deep, after all, and beyond masks… well, there was much to be said about tissues and bone. None were a compliment or of a pleasant experience.

Her fingers rose to a chain draped between her breasts. To an amulet of ashen silver encrusted in tattered frills. There was a moonstone in its centre, a small coin worth more than its weight in silver.

The Lady shaded the moon from the candlelight so that it was solely a half-crescent. And when she did so, the reflection in the mirror also shaded. On one side there was the face she had come to love, unmarred despite the centuries of an eternity. By her left, however, was a pallet of darkness stricken by tarnished flint.

When she tilted her head, the hair over her left shoulder faded in a curtain of ash. The brown eyes once so soft vanquished into sullen sockets, and her skin became hollowed poceline, scratched along the jaw, grey along the marrow.

A boned face with no beauty.

The lips of her other half thinned wryly. She took the decanter from her dressing table that in the withered reflection of the mirror had become a decomposed flask, bubbling in vile green liquid. The scent of lavender was no longer present. Only the crackling spoil of poison.

The Lady grimaced, and wondered briefly if a stomach she did not possess could curl at such a foul smell. Still, in a quick sip the contents was gone. The decanter discarded. In a flurry of pink skirts she parted from her mirror as the flesh over her half face newly reformed.

Lithe legs padded through the Proud Spire just as they had done many a night before, knowing the passing panes of frost and tiny spinnerettes twisting webs into nooks just as well. Down a spiral stairway and tattered carpet, to wood-wormed boards and puddled ale. Finally, when she rounded the last staircase and swept through her last door, she was welcomed to the sight of a tanned maiden bowing on her stage, a harp curled possessively to her chest.

Madame Florianne, a maiden fare in age, tanned of flesh, ample in body and strong of will. A local favourite. A performer with a tongue as sweet as her dance. She slipped from the stage just as chants and cries begun to grow, uncaring of the audience so long as coin rattled behind her.

Instead of honouring their beck and call, Madame Florianne chose instead to welcome Masella with a kiss, slipping a hand around her waist. "A full house we have this night. Strangely, is it not, to find so many men in our quaint little city? But of course that means more for our wage."

Madame Florianne patted the purse along her thigh, relenting in a tired sigh, though her eyes were glinting in the shrouded shadow of the theatre. "Warmed them up for you, love. Be careful now, the men are more than lively."

Masella pursed her lips and peeked through a frayed curtain behind her friend. Serving maids intertwined within the ruckus that gradually begun to die; tables so few and distant had four to five patrons huddled around them while coin rained across the stage with many purses left deflated.

 _The souls of the wicked and the damned, and here I am to pay them joy. How positively delightful!_

The Lady smiled in excitement, though the appearance of one such man gave it pause, even though he was seated as far from the stage as one could be. Her chest fluttered upon his sight, though in the most unnerving way.

There was a longsword draped lazily across his thighs, silver and pommelled in an ornate eagle head, while a cowl cloaked his face like a crooked talon, truly appearing suspicious when settled over a somber sanguine robe trimmed with ermine. Only a bristled jaw stuck out. Still, she bayed her friend farewell, gliding upon the stage with her small, slender feet amid a prance.

The Lady kept her gaze to the floor, counting the steps to her mark. One-two-three, one-two-three. When she reached the centre, she unhooked a flute from her waist-belt and moistened her lips with her tongue. She cleared her throat before playing. From her flute a soft sound taling of adventure, storms and leaves gradually flittered across the theatre like a faint wind carring sweet honeysuckle. Her patrons leapt at every note with open mutt tongues.

And as the flute begun to hasten in rhythm, build in tempo, her feet begun to dance, shifting across the stage while her skirts flowed along in her tilts, turns, frolicks and spirals. She closed her eyes, imagining a brook and fields and rivers. She then imagined a sea, smiling as her fingers frisked over hollow holes as fingertips tingled in the sensation of panted breath.

From the depths of her being she allowed the brevity of her Source to channel through her flute. The gathering below her soon arose, hushed yet alive, the heated auras of memory and awe, the very blending of their souls with her magical essence inspiring her with renewed vigour. Her steps became more frantic, more joyful, her pirouettes spritely, her curtsies euphoric.

Just as she nearly reached the crescendo of her performance, her entire world had come undone. Her Source, as soon as it was built was wretched from her chest in one long, harsh tug. The elf gasped. Her knees folded to the floor. Her flute clattered along the stage in an ear-piercing shatter.

Th colours from her mind sank to black. She fanned her chest, raked a nail into her flesh, clutched her neck, felt her voice throb in a raspy sob.

When she dared to look towards the crowd she saw that many of the men were glancing to one another, wide-eyed and uncertain. That was when she reaslised. Her spell had been broken. Yet a select few still came to her aid, dashing towards the stage just as Madame Florianne caught her shoulders and aided in her friend's shaky rise.

"Gods above, Masella, did you injure your leg?" she asked, tightening her hold on the elf's shoulders. "Blast. Was it the drudanae? I told you never to take too much before a performance, love! You never listen…"

She parted the suitors from the stage, holding Masella's waist and ushering her away from the theatre.

Masella's hand fell from her neck to grasp a passing pillar. Her lips trembled. Her head hung low, her legs stood shaky, yet she gathered the strength to peek up beneath her tousled hair, out towards the remainder of the Proud Spire. From the far corner, away from candlelight, the same cowled man now stood beyond the gathering with a necklace firmed in a gloved fist.

Wisps of energy swirled around him, too faint for the non sourcerers to see, but enough for her to sense the warmness of her Source, the familiarity that was her conjure, be devoured by him. Her Source was drawn to him like a bee to nectar. His hooded form glimmered in a doused green, like her spirit itself had been fastened into his own ethereal armour.

Her hand dug deep into the pillar. _A Magister?_

Madame Florianne continued to usher her aside, but all she saw was the whisk of Magister cloak strolling out towards the front door ajar from its mooring. The theatre hissed in introduction of the night, and the flames of the hearth shivered from his departure. Masella drew in a deep breath and limped up a stairway towards her loft.

Madame Florianne attempted to cater to her but was left outside, while the latch of the elf's bedchamber was hastily fastened. Masella then drew herself over to her window, unlatched panes and thrust the creaking frames out into the night. Leant over a fractured windowsill, she spied many things: the heaven bathed in the twinkle of a thousand-thousand stars; the glitter of moonlight playing upon ice-sleet rooves; the winding roads of a quiet town, cobbled in glinting flagstone.

The roads were near-bare. Only rats dared to scurry within the deepest darkness. Until she saw Him. Still he shone in lustre, broad shoulders braced against the cold in a thick woollen mantle, boots of leather hastily crackling through icy puddles.

Her following movements were swift, precise. Movements she had not donned for over a decade yet still rung true to her body. Her fingers plucked garments from her wardrobe, potions from her apothecary, snatched twin blades from her pillowcases and a bow, carved in the ornate angles of tusks and bone, from her weaponrack. As soon as she was dressed she leapt out of the window, snatched the windowsill with one hand and begun to slowly climb down the theatre with her other.

Branches crackled under her feet. The very lattice snapped in frozen leaves and snagged thorns. Her arms shook against the weight of her pack baring her shoulders down and her bow clinked against the heel of her boot on every second step. The firelight of the Proud Spire passed on her way down, and when her feet met solid stone, she dashed into the city without a single glance back to her home.

The essence of her Source left a bitter-sweat taste in the air. The heavy stature of such a Magister greedily left muddied tracks along the flagstone. It did not take long for her to pick up his trail. And so she sought him out, amongst the natter of rats and the clues from owls that with eyes so bright could see everything. He had no escape.

At the end of the road, he swiftly leapt into an alley with a wisp of black feathers. Built between two homes, it was a shielded nook to the world, long and narrow. There were hay bales, carts of foul lettuce and discarded market stalls left to await a new morn.

Though flickers of an armorsmith undulated before her. The scene so materialistic, so real, that she could smell the tanned leather and smoked iron, hear the hammer of tongs and anvils, feel delight in the heightened imagery of ancient war. Her head tilted around the scene in awe, her hand daring to reach out to touch it.

But then she felt the warmth of her Source and shook her head of the past. She strode forth through the memory, raised her bow from her chest and clipped an arrow into the string.

Masella trimmed the feathers with a forefinger; her ears quivering beneath her veil. Rats scurried by the drains. Ice crackled under gutters. Hounds howled distantly, but there was no scent of soggy earth or perfumed robes. No scent of an old, lordly man whom she had come to expect from her Source thief.

The Lady traced the earth with a finger, tasted the tang of metal and ash on her tongue. She dared to draw further into the disquiet, her bow raised and the feathered arrow prickling her cheek.

Behind a cart there was a momentary slip in the shadows. A breath clouding the air before her.

Masella faltered, tilting her head innocently to a sudden, curious melody that was Source. It twinkled like chained bells. Mesmerised her. Hypnotised her. Dispelled the world around except for one black figure striding out of the dark.

In an instant she sunk to her knees. Ice cracked beneath her and the very breath of winter seeped deeply into her lower skirts. Barely breathing, barely listening, all she could do was stare into the puddle ahead reflecting the sky, only to linger on the thief rippling in the reflection, masked as a black terror. In his hand swirled the familiarity that was her Source, snuffed and contained into a very thick collar, clenched in an iron fist.

The Magister swept his mantle back from his thigh, then slowly descended to one knee. He brushed her chin with a forefinger, yet it was the ring of a ruby that caught her wandering eye. "My, my dear girl. I am so very delighted to make your acquaintance at long last. It has been sometime since I met one with your particular gifts, though I must admit, I have never snared a widow in it's web before. You truly are a temptress, aren't you? Playing the fools to the slaughter. So elegant. So poetic. It's just so…"

He licked his lips, leaning in to trace the scent of lavender from her neck. "Delicious."

The Magister clasped Masella's hand, bringing it up to his lips in a kiss. The elf murmured low, though he only grinned, smoothing the swollen plump over her bitten lip with his thumb, and following the bob in her throat to the necklace nestled over faded finery at the base.

She wished to tear the face from his skull in that heartbeat, only for her bubbling ire to remain constrained within a body that could not be commanded, not by her.

The Magister chuckled, a hoarse cackle like wilted leaves in a drought. "My, my, do we have a taste for the finer. Whom did you take this from, I wonder? Laced cursed words into a lording's ear? Coaxed drugged wine into a fine knight's delicate pallet?" He grasped her throat, softening the skin with his thumb. "But, where are my manners? What must you think of me? You may call me the Saviour. Of your soul, hmm? From this…" he tsked, "den of iniquity. The Voidwoken could paint this place in so many pretty colours."

His hand left her skin in a rush of cold, only returning when a clank of iron snapped below her ears. Leashed to a collar, bound to a slaver. He tore the hood from her shoulders, smeared the essence of drudanae across her lips.

The elf grimaced, spat. Attempted to flee. Only her knees remained locked to the ground, as if she was a puppet waiting for her master to play her strings.

It was not long before the deep blues and greys of the world faded into essences of black. Her mind became hazy, and soon she found her body sagging into the Magister's arms. The warmth of his robed chest lulled her shoulders to ease. His forcing hand tugged her cheek to his shoulder as she was lifted, yet even the gentle swing of his shoulders as he walked away from Maigneux caused her eyes to flutter. There was only one reason possible. His feathered robe was enchanted, for surely it was impossible for someone to be so soft.

That night, Masella slept in the arms of a murderer. Ironic, it was, how it was far more peaceful than even the grave should have been.

She did not wake until five days later.

When unsteady tides rocked a boat she clung to on a northernly course, she saw through a slit the silouhette of a figurehead tipping into a crisp red sky. Gulls flocked to the horizon, where from the sea an island crowned the waves in pearls of sandy dunes. It was in that moment that her heart fell into the ocean, for she knew she would forever be lost to the fear of the lower desks. The fear of the island's Fort Joy.

~~o~~


	2. Intriguing Oddities

.

 **Sincerity in Muteness**

~~o~~

Chapter Two: Intriguing Oddities

There was a boneman on the eastern dunes of the coast, one whom bayed the celeste sea very little mind.

In the beginning the young, lithe elf thought she had been dreaming. Men of bone on this land? Impossible! Yet she was an inquisitive creature of the day, swaying into the pink skies of a new dawn, journeying through ruined spires and toppled sea wreckages in search of oddities swept in by the tide. There were hidden treasures clustered in misshapen nooks carved by the sea as well. Most of her days had been left as such since her arrival on the barren land of a Nameless Isle, other than mild exploration of the native inhabitants, of course.

The remainder of her people; elves, men or sourcerers, had stayed within the great castle on the hill, cut from the living rock and sanded down into a monument of the elite. Yet though the lower source-barers trod through the poorer districts in search of ways to gain entry to such a palace, she had far more opportune thoughts, finding valuables in districts others scarsely cared to gander. Truly simple pickings for a knife-ear who knew how to stay quiet. Yet the sight of a bone man gave her pause, for to admit the truth, she had never seen one up close before.

Poised, he was over the remains of a forgotten soul who had been too ill-fortuned to survive the sea. His corpse had been sunken halfly into white sand, holding only the valuable necessity of clothes that had long been ripped and taken by scavengers. Like herself. Only the toes of a leather boot remained on him, peaking out from the grain. In contrast his upper half had been dug and dragged to the surface, but even that had begun to cake in the mid-evening sun.

Masella glanced down over the frayed duster of her half-naked form, spying dried shades of red that had yet to fade from the seams. It barely fit her, for elves were known for their long bodies whilst humans had curvy, stumpy limbs that seemed to impress the earth no matter where they strode. The material barely passed her waist. For fear of sharing more flesh than necessary, she had strewn palm leaves into a dress covering her midrif and concealed her assets by the long length of her hair.

Masella hid behind the wreckage of an old fishing boat dug deeply into the dunes. Peeking over creaking boards, her twin ears pricked in wonder of the boneman's existence.

 _Had I seen the man of bone before? s_ he wondered, then slipped further over dampen wood. Her sandy lips firmed in thought.

The last her memory held was the scene of a long, tall galleass drifting with black sails below a midnight sky. From the nook in her chamber she had beheld an unwrinkled ocean. One that had reflected the waxy pallet of a white moon in full clarity.

Grief had not been alone in that evening. It had been solely encouraged, firstly by the heavy groan of manned oars that sounded from the galley like a sad song, and secondly by the muster of hidden spells that filled the grim, dimmed un-light of the slave quarters, providing a hazy, ashen tang to the air that made her tongue fall sour.

She remembered the crimson robes of the Magisters, the crown of sceptres circling their crowns; a snear plastered on kneatly shaven jaws, while their eyes shone under a gold-rimmed cowl like beads of firelight. There was always a mace dangling by their thighs. Some even held a sheen of red.

The young elf shuddered against the boat from the memory. For a moment she feared to return to it, for the very sight of any Magister filled her with dread. Still, she forced her eyes shut, and remembered the smaller moments. The mumble of strict curses. A crisp creak of turned pages. There had been a man beside her cage, one who spoke in muffled tones heavily influenced in accents of other nations. Many she scaresly understood.

She remembered how the words slipped into her twitching ears like the hiss of a feline caught unawares. Ever-curious, she had knelt beside the crack in the wall that parted them, only to find a tatter of cotton breeches, a rugged mesh of jerkin and a tousle of locks curled behind one keen ear. The other had been completely torn off.

Masella scrunched her nose and shook the memory away.

The Boneman was neither of those things. Though he in himself was familiar. It might have been the subtley of his mumblings that roused the similarity, or perhaps it was simply the longing of a companion that set her rememberance awry.

Where sinew had been tanned his was nonexistent. Where the indents of a jawbone took place a marred maxilla replaced it; sharp like clear-edged glass. Bone fused magically, he was, with matted tissue that slipped into sand as fluidly as if muscle and ligament were intertwined as a watery wrapping. The only patch of clothing he bore was a prison garb she had also once wore, and a cowl craning his skull, though even that seemed to barely shadow the glint of curiosity in his creases.

Masella's dangled legs instantly slipped from the boat - into the dunes of the coast. She dove into the sand, prepared for the Boneman's awry attention. Only he did not peer her way. Her eyes turned more curious, less kind. She listened and observed his maddening rumbles, while her hands playfully braided her hair.

"Does the beard act as some form of anchor, or maybe it simply needs a good tug to be set free. The eyebrows, perhaps..." the Boneman had continued to murmur, stiffly leant over a weathered corpse whilst tugging at the dead bristles with a bony forefinger and thumb. He relented, agitatedly scratching his vertebrae. "Perhaps fire might singe the flesh free from his bones. But then I'd have no flesh to mask."

The Boneman paused, tapping the end of his chin before attempting another tug, only instead at a half-singed earlobe. The skin instantly slapped back into place. "Bugger."

He sighed, wafting the dead head away with the back of his hand. He drew himself upright, turning sharply left to the west. From there one hand dug inside his mantle, pulling from the feathered rim a tome backed in leather. It was there, stood away from the sun, that he begun to read a volume of Cranley Huwbert's famous encyclopaedia.

His murmurs soon warped into a forgotten tongue, one that seemed to mesh with the wind and harmonise with the waves. Masella remained sat in her own little hovel, satisfied in merely studying the oddity that swept onto her shores, for there was simply nothing to do on an island built for the ill-fortuneous.

For several hours the Boneman remained in his trance, never once glancing up from his book, even when Masella had parted from the relic of the row boat long ago to observe the dead man's corpse more clearly. Gingerly, she had reached into his breeches, straining against the soggy puddles that had rumbled in from the rising tide to find coins, cockles and a dagger from his pockets. She then shrunk away, slipping her satchel from her shoulder and carefully folding her new oddities into it.

Her focus peeked up from time to time, only to find that the Boneman had once again not seen her. It was only when she dared to slip further up into his shadow, craning over his shoulder to see the laced text of his encyclopaedia that he begun to stir. He would have blinked, she supposed, if he had eyes and lids.

Still entranced, he barely had the instinct to glance back. Only when he did, he collapsed away from the young elf, raising his hands and dropping his book with a thud. "No! Stay back! Who- what do you want!"

Masella raised a hand to her mouth, lightly muffling her laugh. The Boneman continued to dig away, throwing sand in her direction, though it merely tickled her feet. "Stay away you, you! I have no valuables, I swear!"

The elf tiptoed closer, shifting her weight to spy each new snippet of skull through his shroud. He crawled further and further away, digging long fingers into the sand, scraping grey legs behind him; marking a trail that even blind men could see.

Masella realised his agitation and slowly stepped away. She smiled a wary smile that did not quite reach soft cheeks, even if kissed by the midday warmth.

"You… you're not here to harm me?' he queried having noticed her lack of violence. He dared to lean slightly forward.

The elf shook her head.

"Oh? Oh, that is… good! Who knew a mortal could starve the desire to murder and maim? Surely you must be a rarity in your species, though come to think on it, I know very little of your species. You are a... human? No, no you are far taller, much leaner, pointed ears... an elf? Yes, yes you must be. But... where was I?"

The Boneman sighed, plucking his encyclopaedia and raising to his feet. "Whatever brought you to me, I'm afraid I cannot be of any help. Unless… tell me, how would you remove the flesh of a human without mangling it? Despite my attempts I cannot seem to get the blighted thing off. It's almost stuck, as it were. On such a perfect specimen, too."

Such a question would have worried many on the island as it were. Sometimes, when listening closely to the wind, the ungodly clang of steel could be heard drifting over the forest, or the call of battle would ring true from many of the statues dedicated to the Seven Gods, as if the benevolent themselves approved such murdering.

Masella listened to the wind, just as she had learned to do so many nights ago, closing her eyes. All she heard was the plight of gulls cracking cockles across the shore and the lapping of blue waves floating in abundance of chalky foam.

She raised her head to the Boneman, searching his skull for any form of trickery, insincerity, wickedness. Yet all she saw was what he was: bone with an acute air of source. It tingled upon her fingers when he brushed past her, bright and flickering like the jewel fixed into his crown. And when he knelt over the corpse, she found that attune to magic weaken, withering from her chest like a dying fire.

The young elf quietly raised her hand to her collar. It hung from her neck, light as a feather but as strong as the hardest iron. Her heart fluttered briefly, remembering his magic, but then her hope sunk, as she remembered that her own magic was constrained to mild flitters.

She met him over the corpse, stilling when she saw his further attempts to remove the pocked skin. She fell to her knees, plucking a scythe-like dagger from her waist belt and placing it gently into his hand.

The Boneman stared at the weapon with dead eyes before letting it fall flat in his palm. "A knife? Yes, that might work! Wait, no, too mundane. I need something that is source-woven, something magical…"

He groaned, raising a hand to his brow-bone. "Take it. Take your knife and go. I have much to ponder on."

Masella tilted the dagger in her hand, admiring the glint of silver and the elven markings etched into the deer-headed pommel. Her gaze remained on it for several heartbeats before her hand slipped it back into its sheathe. She rose, willing to leave the living skeleton to his wishes. Though then she heard something stir within distant undergrowth, far off into nearby shade. It was something broad, she was sure, for she noticed branches give way to the glade's shadows. Birds fled from nearby nests to circle high in the sky.

She tapped the skeleton's shoulder. Once, twice, thrice. Each time he battered her away with his hand to write curved scripture into his journal. The stirring of the forest grew closer. Branches crackled further outland. Darkness begun to flash in metallic radiance.

Without a word the young elf grasped him by the scruff of his mantle and begun to drag him back towards the row boat. He yelped, grasping at his shroud, mantle, sand. She drug him further and further still, her feet so into the ground that she begun to feel damp soil beneath her toes. Finally, when his kneecap met the fore end of the boat, she mounted him, pressing her scythe into the chink of his collar.

If he were human she was sure his throat would clench, his eyes bulge, his heart hammer beneath her thigh. But all she felt was a cold press dead bone that should not have held consciousness. His shaky hands fell outstretched over his shoulders in mock surrender.

Having sensed motion beyond them, the elf held her breath, lowering herself so that her breasts grazed his ribcage.

"Good heavens," the Boneman whispered as he too held his breath. She heard a prayer escape his chaste mouth and fought not to chuckle.

From the breath of the forest two men steered through the undergrowth, arms clamping on vine and branch, snapping and forcing the very essence of nature aside in fisted gauntlets. Masella glanced along the edge of the row boat, finding bright robes stark against the sea and coast. Her grasp on her scythe softened, just as her own sense of self begun to stiffen. Yet she dared not to utter a sob, even though a tear filled with fear slipped down her grey-speckled cheek.

"Why're we down here when there are more captures by the Keep?" one of the Magisters demanded, his words dripping from his tongue like a vile of salamander venom. He frowned down upon the corpse on the coast, booting grains of the shore over the pale-stricken dead, clouding the open eyes and hung lips.

The other Magister raised a shoulder and gazed into the capital of the island almost dreamily. "It's the commander's orders. Pluck the weak from the beach, bury the dead that the sea won't lap up like evening supper. Keep the strong clustered in the fort until they too grow hungry and weak. Cull until no more can be culled. No more no less. Orders are orders."

"Aye, but why do we dally, Lockheart? When there are more of us then there are of them! They cannot use their source now, friend. We could pick them off, one by one." The Magister thumbed the hilt of his mace eagerly. Like a farmer readying his hound for the hunt.

The other Magister, Lockheart, tilted his crow-craned shroud back to his friend, placing a long finger to weathered lips and shaking his head. "No pity, have you? They were born with the source, doesn't mean they deserve to suffer more than they have. Come, it's getting dark and the last we need is for them to make another enquiry on missing men."

Masella did not dare to even whisper until the last of the Magisters disappeared from the entirety of the coast. It was only when sunlight fell into the distant hillside, when night swept across the ocean and warmth claimed very little of the land, twisted by an evening's cold, that she braved a stance.

She quietly rose to her knees, barely registering the faint shift of leather as her dagger slipped back into her pouch. The elf pressed a hand to her mouth, cupping soft lips.

She shook her head and fell back from the Boneman, shuddering against the sand. M _agisters so close to the water,_ she whimpered. _Is nowhere safe?_

The Boneman gradually sat up. When he seemed sure nothing spontaneous would happen from the elf, he turned to find his tome and tucked it back into his mantle. Peeking over the row boat, he gradually stood, kneecaps cracking and stray bones shattering, then finally shifted into place.

"You should not fear them," he said, parting stray undergrowth aside with his fingers. His foot caught an upturned root and he tumbled forward, just managing to balance before he met the sand. "Blasted nature, always getting into things! But truly, mortal, those men are nothing to fear. It does surprise me how easily fearful you creatures are, though you do so easily dance with death. I'm not quite sure how you stand it."

The Boneman returned to his corpse, only to find that it had been mangled beyond repair. "Damnation! I will have to find another."

Even as the words left his mouth, the elf could sense the slight dimming of his brow bone, creased in disappointment. He begun to leave the coast, hand scratching the back of his spine when she grasped his shoulder, twisting him back to meet her.

"What now?" he demanded, stamping forward. "I am busy here, is that not evident? My back was to you, my face turned away from you… perhaps my skull was facing the wrong way? Damnable thing." The Boneman strode over to the water and peered into his reflection, the white bone crowned with a jewel shivering in the surface. He shifted it from left to right, up to down. "No, it works quite adequately. It seems you are at fault."

Masella scowled, slowly folding her arms, bunching her breasts.

The Boneman tilted his head, scratching the side of his jaw questionably. "How interesting. Just one moment." Again his tome was out as scarred fingers flicked through century-old pages in haste. He pressed the tip of his forefinger into one page, then a wry frown formed over his jaw. "Narrowed eyes. Scrunched brows. Down-turned lips. Disappointment? No. No… anger? Frustration?"

Masella found herself ever more curious, tipping her chin up if to see the text more clearly.

The Boneman quickly snapped the bind shut. "It's come to my attention that you haven't spoken. Once. Why is that? Please tell me mortals haven't lost the ability to speak, amongst other things."

The young elf raised a hand to her throat. She rubbed the base, frowning deeply. Her lips parted to speak, though only a rasped whisper was uttered. She then begun to move her hands, shifting them into gestures, meaningful signs.

The Boneman stared at her in utter bewilderment, searching through his journal for answers. "You're mute? Yes, yes I have studied this before!" He carefully moved his own hands, bones scratching bone, fingers touching face, shoulders, chest.

Masella grinned with an eager nod.

The Boneman breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally! Now, knowing you can understand what I'm saying, please shoo. I have much to do and little time to do it. There are only so many bodies on this island, and so few are in adequate condition. I must be off, as must you. Alone. Without me."

He pointed into the forest before flashing his shroud, twisting away. Yet she, entranced by even the very idea of his creation, could solely follow his steps. Until, late into the evening, she took his shoulder in her hand and tipped his skull up to the fort cresting the hill above them. Quiet, he watched her hands play in story, reinacting in sequences even he could not fully comprehend.

In all, one matter stood out to him, one that had a boned finger tapping his chin in interest. "Travel together? And why on this very earth should I do such a thing? I'm in no immediate danger here. In fact, you're the first living mortal I've seen in over three days. I'd take that as very good fortune, until now at least."

"There are people up there. Bad men. Magisters that tried to find you, me," she gestured, though she struggled in her coherence, for even as an elf that had lived a century and more, broken Rivellonian, like for so many other elves, was as fluent as a river stretched over hillsides, damns. Broken and trying. "People leave the ruins above. People like us, source-barers. They will hurt you Bone-man. I could help you."

"Now that you mention it, the arrival of yourself might mean that times have changed on this island. It was bound to happen eventually, I suppose. But why of all would you wish to help me? We've only just met."

The mute stared into the mass of spires and stone above her, finding her flesh prickle at the very sight of it. So many Magisters. And the one who took her was bound to be in that Keep, somewhere. Probably sneering down from the highest window, gazing upon the groves and dunes under his authority as a demigod, though truly not satisfied with any of the layout. His words still clung to her like saltwater;

The Voidwoken could paint this place in so many pretty colours.

Though she preferred solidarity at times such as that, she knew her survival was due to fate. An ally in lands thick with greed were what she required in order to continue living as any living undead could. Too often had she witnessed the corposes the boneman picked cleaned along the shore. She had no wish to be one of them. And the face of the undead, even strange that he was, would more often than not ward off any who would dare try to defile her.

Fortune smiled on her that day, it was true. And she was not going to let it waste.

"I find you interesting," she merely grinned, watching her companion stiffen in the utter absurdity of such an answer. Still, she slipped her fingers in between his, even though he attempted to shrug the foreign flesh from his extremities. "I know this land, boneman. I have seen its people. Tell me what you need. I will help you find it. Then, you will help me leave. I long for home. You will help me, I know it to be true."

"Yes," he grumbled, "by walking the sea floor."

"Then we take a ship," she gestured, "we sail away. You will not survive alone. Neither will I. Together, we shall leave this place behind. I know it, Boneman. I feel it. Tell I what you need. What makes you pick at corpses?"

The Boneman shook his head. "My name is Fane, if we are to traverse this land together. Not Boneman. And, if you must know, I'm searching for a mask. Not just any mask, but a magical mask. One that was ingeniously designed I might add, that allowed me to take your primitive form. Only it was viciously robbed from my person."

"By whom?" she asked innocently, batting her lashes.

"By a witch, who else? Only it seems she was far more resourceful than I took her for. There was a storm, oh about four days ago. It caught our ship and left me stranded. I searched that ocean floor for days looking for her body, only she must have returned to this island. I've been searching for her ever since. I have to say, I didn't think anyone survived the wreckage. But that hag must have. And she's somewhere here, I know it."

"And if you do not find your mask?"

How he managed to scoff was beyond her. Surely he lacked the orifices. How he had the gift of speech was just as pondering. "I find the answer self-evident. I'll be chased by the entirety of Rivellon by every idiot wielding a torch that does not appeal! And though that might not seem terribly bothersome to you, if we are to be working together, I can promise you now it will not go well. So, if I am to traverse this land, I will need a mask to disguise my features. Sooner rather than later."

The mute winced at the harshness of his tone, slowly loosening her grasp on his hand. Still, their fingers remained linked, loosely tangled together. She could understand his anxiousness for such a mask, though. She in herself was not that different. Only her facade was far more real, and hid the bone so far deep that no mortal could truly tell the difference.

"And what will you do when you find this mask?"

"Well, if you must know, I have far more pressing matters on Reapers Coast. This prison island will not get in the way of my research. I cannot simply wait for all of you to die. Even though I am an Eternal, it does not make time pass any faster. And my patients has its limits. So, we should retrieve my mask and be on our way. Unless you have some matters that need attending to first?"

 _Yes,_ she thought solemnly. _There are a few._

They remained together even when rise of a new dawn begun to crest the distant hills of the island. Through that time Masella watched the shadowed height of the castle, sunk deep into the clutch of a mountain. Her heart sunk upon the sight of it. For so long she had slaved under its forboding shadow. For so long she wept and fled from its baring, for there were always screams coming from the keep. So many screams that haunted her dreams, twisted them into terrible nightmares.

One day, she knew she would have to trespass its halls if she were to ever return home. To Maigneux. To the Proud Spire. To her joy of dance and songs and merriment. And so she would seek the Magister that swallowed the light from her lips and warped her source into a wand of his own choosing. She, living and dead, would obtain her retribution, even if it meant plucking the life from his own lips and sending him into the depths of the beyond, mute and afraid, like he had done to her.

For a moment a cynical smile warped any innocence from her face. For some reason, she liked it.


	3. Fort Joy

.

 **Sincerity in Muteness**

~~o~~

Chapter Three: Fort Joy

"How did you come to the island, Boneman?" Masella asked before meeting the great ruin of Fort Joy. Initially she had been against the notion of returning to it if to solely quell her friend's unusual curiousity.

There were Magisters a-plenty in the ruin after all. No new galleons had come to heel in over two months, so a new face was surely something to rouse their suspicion, unless the Magisters saw all sourcerers as the same.

Even neaby, just shy of the many stone steps that rose high to meet the outer barbican of the once walled city, the old souls of the island bore down their judgemental cruelty upon her. Sculptured effigys of historic lords, once rulers of the island, thronged from the barbican seemed to shimmer, distort, as if ancient memory were resurfacing through a fabric in time.

The wind whispered their names; Minister Sevek Frollo, Lady Eleanor Rhenawedd, Lord Sirius Krause, and finally Lord Braccus Rex, whom stared out into the horizon, represented in the mightiest of champion statures, whilst a ring of chained elves formed the basis of his pedastal.

Masella attempted to shake away any resonance of the past. It had been a curse of hers since she was a child, being a source of awakening for strong emotions of tragic resilliance that never truly died, even if their barers had. She could still hear his lions pawing the stone faraway. Even glimpsed manes stalking the mountaintops cupping the valley.

Masella withdrew from the closest ancient statue of Braccus Rex and sought comfort in her own dead man's shadow. Her Fane, even if a scholar of unusual eccentrics, was far more compelling to her than any cruel whisperings of another time. As well, in that moment, with a fear of slavery so close to her, she needed the comforting monotone voice of another, if solely to feel grounded.

"Is it not enough that you travel with me? Must we speak as well? Or gesture, as it were. Dear mortal, this is the third time you've pestered me. Are my where-goings and has-beens that important to you?"

The elf nodded once, further hiding in his shadow.

He sighed. "If you must know, I was captured, like you, on a vessel set for this very island. As dashing as this place is, I was never to arrive here in chains. No, the witch I seek tore the vessel apart with the help of an unfriendly Voidwoken. I, being the inbodiment of cunning and wit, merely waited for the vessel to sink before I took to walking... here."

"Why here?"

"Have you been listening at all?" he asked, broad shoulders rising ever-so highly above his chin. He shoulders reminded her of a well-worn barge of willow that corded when he moved.

"That witch has my mask! Must I repeat for a second time why you mortals love to threaten me with rotten fruit and pitch forks? I'm missing my glorious visage, and until I retrieve it from that crone's hands, I am stuck hiding my face on this island. Does that compute, mortal?"

Masella nodded once more, though she felt herself shrink in the wake of the oncoming castle. Fane seemed to notice her hesitance yet said nothing.

Inside the ruin was just as she remembered. A bailey forming a once long court-hall with many cumbled archways and terrifs splitting off into a variety of different paths. Every nook was consumed by cages with chains bound with skeletons dangling from their pillars.

"This city..." Fane muttered, peering around the place with a flare of disappointment in his voice, "an utter disaster."

In the very centre of the hall stood a depiction of Lucian the Divine, last Avatar of the Seven Gods. Like the previous shrine his shimmered in an acriminous aura. Staring as she did, the wings along his spine undulated, though it may have been a trick of the sunlight caught in the patterned feathers.

"Ah. Another one of your divinely chosen. Should of known the Magisters worshipped him like some type of god. Any man of importance seems to hold sway over your beliefs. You'll all swoon for the next man deigned saintly, I'm sure of it."

Masella frowned at the snark in his tone. Her fingers threaded into his mantle and tugged him, softly, towards the divine. "You are a scholar."

"Yes, I am, but not on your history. No, mankind, dwarf kind, lizard kind, yes even elven kind strive for the greatness that is rememberance. See this ruin?" She peered around, nervously pulling at her tattered garment. "How old is this ruin? A century? Perhaps two? It will be dust in another. Then another civilisation will take its place. There is no rememberance to your kind's mortar and rock. Not even source could keep these monuments from withering."

"Do you not believe in the gods, Boneman?"

The skeleton scoffed. "Your Gods? Why should I? They've never had the decency to grant me any wishes before. I tried, once. You know what I heard?"

Intrigued, the mute watched him with bated breath, hoping to all hope that he was about to provide some historical wisdom that would change her views of ascendancy forever. Only his hand watted the statue away as if it was nothing more than dirt beneath his boots. "Nothing. Not. A. Peep."

She stepped away, frowning deep. "That cannot be true."

"Oh, but is is, dear mortal. Who is it you elves believe in again?"

"Tir-Cendelius," she gestured, kneading her amulet daintily held around her neck. In that moment it felt like solid gold. "The poet."

"A poet!" he cried, with a senseless burst of laughter. "A poet created a race of elves to frolic through trees and dance under the moon in all your nethers. And you think I'm mad."

He was about to turn when he paused. It seemed a thought had occured to him. "It is not that I do not believe in your gods, I simply believe that other forces helped them become what they were. And, if they were just people, then I dare they they belonged to another people, not those I see now. And then I have to wonder... who were their people? Where are the others of their kind?"

He shrugged her touch away, twisting to the divine effigy with as much skepticism as he could muster. "Have you never truly thought on the existence of other matters? Tell me truly. Have you always believed that your god created everything, and that there was no other theoretical reason for your existence? No other celestrial divine?"

Her brown eyes fell downcast as she searched the gravel beneath her toes, in a way for an answer. It had been so many years since she had even thought on her people's god. On her people. On her family, for they were in simple graves under an oak that held no statue, no emblem, no memory.

Masella could walk the lands of elvendom; under the wild glades of her forefathers; under the starry skies of Tir-Cendelius' own protection, and not find a peep of her sisters' remains. It was during the last century that she had, for a heartbeat, contemplated on the existence of god. On the purpose of her being, on why she was to appear alive and yet be undead.

Her silence seemed to irk the undead boneman. He was about to depart when her fingers once more threaded through his pauldron feathers. Her answer was meek. "Once."

"Then it seems you have some sense, mortal. You might not be a waste of venturing material after all."

 _And you might not be so completely heartless,_ she wished to say, only it remained as it was. A thought.

Her focus drifted to a cart and tent not too far from them. Even so far from the coast the walled city rank of salt and brine. However, the tent held with it something that she definitely never expected to see: a forge, with tools and hammers and chisels, and an anvil in the main quarter. Magisters patrolled the district constantly with their doberman hounds. Each time they circled the premises, their hounds sniffed at Masella's heels, perhaps sniffing for any odour of source on her person. Each time she would shuffle farther and farther away, drawing her hair further across her body in some small form of comfort.

Fane continued to the forge, and she followed meekly behind him.

 _Why would Magisters have steel wrought and cut?_ she wondered, spying the many cutlasses, shields and longswords displayed for viewing pleasure. Each lay protected in old cloths and forgotten rags.

She was about to touch one when a cough caught her unaware. Masella backed away from the steel, shielding her hands in fright.

"Oi! What'd you think you're doing with my stock?" demanded the forge-master.

Masella was even more surprised to find a stocky woman in control of the store. An ashen haired woman to be precise, with muscles far more gallant when held at her hips than even the statue of the divine was. Though the peel of her lips and odour of fish on her breath more than wiped such a fantasy from her mind. No, she was a blacksmith, true and true, with soot dripping from her sweaty forehead. More man than woman, she was, with more than a few scars to prove it.

Masella mumbled frantically, forcing Fane infront of her while she picked at her dagger. Outside Fort Joy she would have happily slit the throat of the blacksmith in two and stole her wares. In a city full with slavers, it was another matter entirely.

Fane greeted the woman cooly, as if her very presence was barely an affront but more of a curious annoyance. He eyed her steel even more, then took to taking her aside. For some odd reason he began to touch her face, which caused the elf to quirk a curious glance at them both, then away. Ever-curious, she heard the shuffle of metal, caught the blacksmith dipping into her wares for something he seemed to need. Only to return empty-handed. In the split of a blink she whipped her hand across his jaw and threw him out of her tent.

Fane landed face-first into the dirt beside Masella's feet, coughing up mud even though he lacked the orffices to cause the reaction. The blacksmith drew up to them once more with a hand half-raised, ready to strike if necessary. "You! You dare to ask me that?! A _face-ripper_? What sort of devil's sourcery are you tryin' to trick, eh?"

"It was merely a question, damnable woman!" the skeleton retorted, slipping his cowl back over his skull before she noticed his lack of skin.

Her gloved fist aimed for him again. Fane jumped out of the way, falling back to catch a broken pillar with both hands.

"You tell Master Kniles that I don't deal with the likes of dark arts. He wants toys for his dungeon? He makes them himself! Go on! Slither back to whence you came. And as for you!"

Masella drew her shiv with one hand, hiding it behind her back as the blacksmith dared to fall into her shadow.

"And you! If I see you pawing my wares again, they'll find your bloody carcass in the sea! You hear me, elf?"

Masella gritted her teeth yet relented, nodding low. The unnamed woman disappeared back into her tent, and the only sound that came from within was the hammer of steel on an anvil.

The elf helped Fane up with a hand and gave him a questionable look.

"And... uh..." He seemed to frown, scratching his head in confusion. "I don't rightly know what just happened."

She quirked an eyebrow high, then begun to tap her toe patiently.

The undead frowned down at his shoes. "All I asked was for a tool to remove faces. Alas, I lacked the correct term to accurately describe my need. Face-ripper felt more than apt at the time. Now... now I'm not so sure."

After a while he readjusted his robes and decided to guide Masella away from the blacksmiths, most likely too embarrassed to be in the vicinity any longer. Sometime later it begun to seem as if exploration to the skeleton was just as important as finding supplies, which had been the original excuse to come to the castle in the first place. And further inside the walls they travelled, the more of the castle's true colours became apparent, as did the true authority over any collared sourcerer.

Where the sea curled up in basalt arms of the island's cove, between shady inlets and beneath foreboding towers built from paste of volcanic loam, the walled city of Fort Joy mewed in the commerce of a chained populace, whom were allowed to govern their own laws under the mighty authority of the one true order.

Masella knew not the extent of their might until she saw chains cut to the likeness of burial stones, hung from the necks of men, be it dwarf, human or lizard, from long, swung cages. Other cages, those not yet full in death, kept women, elders, even a child to sell. The price for each? For one, a solid gold coin. Another a cooking pot. The third a barrel of caught heron that smelled at least a week old. Flies buzzed over the catch, and it seemed that the fish were not freshly caught but plucked from the shore. The scales even had maggots inside the scales, burried deeply into the actual fishs' bones.

Unlike Fane who strolled by his surroundings without notice, she memorised everything. She needed to, so that should the skeleton ever wish to venture inside the castle's walls again, her answer would be a firm, unmoveable decline that no amount of sway could alter.

Rumours slipped through mouths thick with dry spittle. Rumours of sourcerers being snatched in the night by Magisters, never to return. Tales of a 'cure' for her magic, if such a thing were truly possible. Masella shivered at the thought.

 _Source was given to me by Tir-Cendelius himself,_ she thought, whilst gradually tugging her amulet. _Source is natural. To send it away, barbaric._

Without source she would not be alive, or as alive as she was. Without source she would never have been allowed to play in the Proud Spire, would never have had a theatre to call home or have friends to call family. She would have nothing, no one. She would never be able to leave the island alive without it.

Too preoccupied with her thoughts, she never noticed a weak hand grasp the crook in her arm and press her firmly into a cage until the very bars dug painfully into her skin. Shaking her head, she blinked away her reverie and glimpsed into the eyes of a very old, somewhat handsome male elf.

For some reason, a vision of familiarity slipped through her mind. It may have been due to the immense time in which it had been since she had seen a truly living, breathing elf that brought her an instant ease, or that his features, even when drawn out and dry from drout, still held a subtle softness to them that it eased the creases of his years to the point that he appeared no elder than eighty seasons. To a human lifespan, forty years.

"Mistress," he begged, tugging her cuff further in. "Mistress, water. Please. I beg you."

The elf glanced around quickly. When he was sure no one saw his actions, he bent her neck to his mouth and whispered, "I can help you escape. Yes. Escape. I ask for water. Nothing more. Please-"

Masella tore her arm away. She too peered around before giving into her curiosity. "Who?" she mouthed, slipping her hands together and passing them between his and her chest.

The elf pursed his lips. "Who... am I?"

The mute nodded.

"Elasaer," he sighed. "I am Elasaer, mistress."

His name was easy to mouth, pleasant to roll even though no sound was produced. He seemed to realise her inability and proudly bowed his head. "To know thirst is simple. To know hunger, simple still. To not speak. To not sound the words our lord. To not sing. I am sorry, mistress."

A tear slipped down Masella's cheek. She was about to respond when she felt the presence of another on her back. There was no warmth there. Only the cold compress of ancient bone.

"Apologies aren't going to get us off this island," answered Fane, having taken ear of their shared conversation. "Neither is pity. You, mortal, are alive. Thus you must drink, preferably, or so I've heard, not from the sea. Since your options are limited, I would suggest keeping your water for yourself. I fear this poor fool will die within a day of drinking it anyway."

Elasaer watched Masella without word. Her gaze travelled down the broadcloth he wore, woven from sheep that perhaps once roamed the island before being culled. Where Fane appeared bored of the conversation, she remained interested, not only due to the promise of an escape but also from the guilt of leaving one of her own behind. She uncorked her waterskin and drip-fed Elasaer so no liquid was spilt.

"Thank you," he mumbled, slurping the contents down as if it was a fountain of youth. "Blessed be you, mistress. Thank you."

As the elder elf continued to drink the water freely, Masella withdrew her hands and gestured to Fane to translate. "The mortal asks why you've been caged."

Elasaer paused only briefly, licking any remaining water droplets from his arms. "They call me thief," he whispered, wincing from a pain in his lower back. "Thief. Yes. Though I never stole. No. I found refuge by the quay. He-"

He pointed to another cage that also held another elf, one so bent over with pain that is was a surprise he could still stand. "He was caught stealing oranges. I only fished for our dinner, for our families... I was caught. I was judged guilty, as was he."

Masella watched his eyes, stared freely into them and found a relief she had not expected. Relief, and no guilt. His eyes were a crystal green-blue, as clear in colour as the very ocean itself during the day. It was in those that she knew. He was telling the truth.

"Yes, well," said Fane, snatching the waterskin from his frail fingers and thrusting it back into Masella's chest. "It was a pleasure chatting to you, but we really much be off."

"What about a way to escape?" Masella pleaded, grasping Fane's shoulder and forcing him to a standstill.

"The fool was probably lying. I doubt he'd know a way out of here if it hit him in the head. Besides..." The skeleton faltered. "We have somewhere else we must be."

Masella drew her lips taught. "Another place?"

"Why yes, of course. Did you not hear my squabble with the blacksmith? To the dungeons! I must see this Master Kniles. Only then can I finally leave this wretched island."

Her hands slipped freely from him, falling into fists by her thighs. "Your mask... that is all you care about? I thought we came for supplies. Never to return. You want us to get caught. Tortured. Maimed?!"

The very notion was inconceivable! Disasterious! Abhorrent- scaresly imaginable!

And as her temper begun to rise and she felt the familiar burst of source trickle down her fingertips, an unsuspected voice, free from brittle rasp, answered them. "I know the dungeon you speak."

Fane turned to Elasaer in surprise. "You? Of all people, you do?!"

"Yes..." the elder elf whispered, fixing his gaze once more on Masella. "They took my beloved. They leashed and caged me like a dog. I owe them no allegiance. To you, mistress. I swear loyalty. Only to you."

"Because she gave you water?"

"Because she was kind," Elasaer bit back with sudden sharpness. "You would not understand. You are not people. Not my people. Elven are alike. Same heart. Same courage. She was kind. I will be kind. For her. For my beloved. I must find her. With you. That is my choice."

"And will you help us, Elasaer?" Masella gestured, though she herself felt a fear slowly brewing in her gutt, one that could not be so easily quenched.

"I know that place far better than they, mistress. I cleaned. I cooked. Alone you are not safe. With me. As I guide. You will be."

"Then it is settled," exclaimed Fane as he used his fingers to swiftly break the lock of the elder elf's cage.

 _Yes,_ Masella thought grimly, gazing up into the great grey keep overlooking the entirety of the walled city, _settled._


End file.
